It’s that time of year: feedback time!

In week fourteen, each of the media studios has to present a reflection on its learning and achievements throughout the year, so that students can know what to expect when they’re submitting their preferences for next year (we’ll ignore temporarily the fact that all the studios change every semester anyway).

Dan is going to be assessing our contributions to the presentation as a final assignment, so when I heard that the speakers didn’t have to make a written contribution I immediately put up my hand. There are three questions we all have to reflect on, though, before we get to writing up a script so this is what we have to think about for now:

1. What it the studio investigating/exploring? How did it do this?

2. What did you discover in terms of your current/future professional practice?

3. What about this studio would you recommend to potential future students?

In terms of the first question, I’d have to say that the answer is in the title: On the Frame. I would say we looked at both theoretical and practical elements of cinematic framing, in terms of how they are created, their aesthetic impact and the meaning that is contained within them. This involved looking at a range of different readings from film theorists, analysing various films for the way their frames were constructed and, of course, creating our own frames and exploring the importance of the frame for ourselves.

I think the element of On the Frame that was most relevant to my future professional practice would have been the analysis of the individual styles of various directors. Understanding that link between what the director did on set and how that manifested itself in terms of a visual and stylistic aesthetic on screen was really helpful to me in understanding how directors create their own style and how to personally go about constructing my own cinema.

I think I would recommend this studio to people who have an interest in studying films for meaning in the way that people study books for meaning in literature disciplines. I found it really fascinating to be able to look at the way in which what we see on screen conveys certain meaning to us as an audience, whether that be obvious symbolism (the skull tattoo representing the protagonist’s violent past), or the more subtle construction of mood and tone (the blue light evoking melancholy in the audience).